Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79. | | | | New England: Saco, the River, N. H. and Me. | | The Saco | | John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892) |
| | (From Mary Garvin)
FROM the heart of Waumbek Methna, from the lake that never fails, | |
| Falls the Saco in the green lap of Conway’s intervales; | |
| There, in wild and virgin freshness, its waters foam and flow, | |
| As when Darby Field first saw them, two hundred years ago. | |
| |
| But, vexed in all its seaward course with bridges, dams, and mills, | 5 |
| How changed is Saco’s stream, how lost its freedom of the hills, | |
| Since travelled Jocelyn, factor Vines, and stately Champernoon | |
| Heard on its banks the gray wolfs howl, the trumpet of the loon! | |
| |
| With smoking axle hot with speed, with steeds of fire and steam, | |
| Wide-waked To-day leaves Yesterday behind him like a dream. | 10 |
| Still, from the hurrying train of Life, fly backward far and fast | |
| The milestones of the fathers, the landmarks of the past. | |
| |
| But human hearts remain unchanged: the sorrow and the sin, | |
| The loves and hopes and fears of old, are to our own akin; | |
| And if, in tales our fathers told, the songs our mothers sung, | 15 |
| Tradition wears a snowy beard, Romance is always young. * * * * * | | | | |
|
|
